Earth Day | Talk & Draw with Liza Donnelly & Heather Cox Richardson
Earth Day is tomorrow, and Liza Donnelly and I are celebrating with a drawing!
And about the film I mention in the introduction: “Women Laughing.” It’s a look at the women who have drawn cartoons for the New Yorker throughout its history, and their cartoons, shown in the film, will get you laughing. But I was fascinated by the examination of art in the (quite short) film. As the cartoonists explained, their art reflected their own internal vision, and yet it speaks to huge audiences. That universality, in turn, creates a community that both reflects and changes society.
When I teach writing, I talk a lot about the relationship between writer and material, and how, if you think your work through well and manage to execute it even 80% as you envision it, a piece speaks to an audience. But I have never thought about those relationships for cartoons, which are more immediately influential than words (think of Herblock’s extraordinary commentary on Watergate in the Washington Post, for example). I have continued to think about the film since seeing it, and will teach it in the future. Anyone interested in these issues might want to take a look.
If I manage this right, information about it should be here: Women Laughing.
Happy Earth Day!
Oh, and Liza can be found here, at Seeing Things.